Elise clasps Justin’s arm.
“What is it?” he murmurs. “Nervous?”
“Justin, are you sure you’re happy?”
“I’m as happy as anyone can be. Why?” He eyes her shrewdly. “You’re talking about Abby again, aren’t you?”
“It’s just that she seems so possessive.”
“Abby loves me, Elise,” he chides. Certainly more than you did . . . twelve years ago. And it’s a sad fact, he realizes.
Abby needs him. Elise didn’t. If she did, she would never have let him go.
Elise says, “I know. But love doesn’t have to extend to keeping a noose around your neck.”
Justin doesn’t say a word. Elise is right on all counts. But his relationship with Abby is more complex than that. He has gotten comfortable with it, and he never sought to question it.
Until now.
A black nurse strides out from a doorway of the clinic.
“Mr. Morgan?” she calls in a voice that makes Justin jump. Did she have to say his name quite so loudly?
“Here!” Elise waves.
Gawd, with all those people watching him, he feels smaller and smaller. He’s dying to sink his head into his sweater.
The nurse comes to stand in front of him with a clipboard. “Mr. Morgan, this way please. And are you Mrs. Morgan?”
“No, we’re not married,” Elise broadcasts.
Everyone in the clinic looks up. Justin groans.
“Just wait here, Miss.” The nurse jerks a thumb towards the doorway. “Follow me, Mr. Morgan.”
Justin gets up and Elise with him. Before he can go, she surprises him by grabbing his shoulders and hugging him.
“For good luck,” she says against his cheek.
“Thanks.” He hugs her warmly back. He loves her scent. Some sort of jasmine that isn’t overpowering.
She lets him go, flushing a little.
“Well, see you soon,” she says.
“See you.”
Feeling self-conscious, he walks with as much dignity as he can after the nurse, aware that every eye is upon him – male and female. Behind him, Elise gives the two thumbs up sign. The nurse leads him into the room, which is an ordinary clinic with an examination couch, an armchair and medical paraphernalia. Porno magazines are scattered on a table in front of him.
The nurse hands him a plastic specimen tub. “Dump it in here, Mr. Morgan.”
He takes it, suddenly aghast. “I have to fill this up?”
“Of course not. Though a healthy amount of semen would multiply your chances of getting your lady friend knocked up.” She picks up a tube. “Here’s some lube in case you need it, and a box of tissues for you to wipe up after.”
She walks to the door and winks.
“Don’t take too long, Mr. Morgan. We have a very full clinic today. Lots of fathers-to-be waiting for you to finish.”
God. Now he feels like a performing monkey.
The nurse closes the door behind her. Click. Mounted on the wall is a clock going tick-tick-tick.
Shit.
He’s being timed.
*
Justin hasn’t masturbated in years. He never had the need to. Abby is insatiable in bed, never seeming to have enough of him.
He would begin their lovemaking session with hot and heavy kissing – very French with lots of tongue. Then they would both progress to plenty of oral loving, as Abby calls it. Abby loves to slather her tongue all over his cock – up, down, everywhere. Going ‘elevator’, she calls it. Licking his rod with butterfly flicks as she massages his balls with her palms.
He’s getting hard just thinking about it.
He has taken off his jacket and undone the two top buttons of his shirt. His fly is open, and his now erect penis strains against his briefs. He slips his rock hard organ out and starts to stroke it. He closes his eyes.
Don’t need a dirty magazine.
Abby.
He pictures her closed eyes, her head thrown back, her blonde hair a spill against the white of his pillow. Her mouth slightly opened as she savors his thrusting.
Oh Justin, you’re so amazing. You fuck so well and hard.
And somehow, superimposed upon Abby’s ecstatic features, Elise’s beatific face from a past life intrudes upon his perfect fantasy. Although he is mildly disturbed, he doesn’t push it out of his mind. He wants to see where his subconscious would lead him.
Elise.
They were both twenty years old. It was her birthday, and they were at her parents’ summer home in Florida, perched by the swamps. They were out at the old boathouse. It was twilight, and her parents were getting dinner ready. Or at least, her mother was. Her father was chain-smoking a pack of Marlboros on the porch.
Justin grinned at her. “Can your Dad see us from where he is?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Go make sure.”
She scampered in the dark boathouse to the rickety wooden door. She peeked out.
“Nah,” she said, coming back.
“Good.” He bobbed on one of the boats, tied to a post by a rope. “I was thinking of taking this out. Want to join me?”
She smiled impishly. “Sure. What do you have in mind?”
He was glad she couldn’t see his grin in the half-darkness.
They cast off into the swamp. The rowboat was called ‘The Saucy Jane’, and he was dressed in a black tank top that showed off his well-muscled arms. He rowed, and she leaned back into the other end of the boat to admire the view – the one presented by his torso, not the thick tangle of mangroves. The swamp water was deep enough here for his oars not to touch bottom.
He was hugely enjoying himself because they were both young and in love and they had the world at their feet.
He rowed them out to the middle, and he stopped to let the boat drift. The air was pregnant with humidity and thick with the scent of vegetation. Slippery shapes darted in the green waters.
He put down his oars and held out his arms.
“Come here,” he murmured.
She gladly came into them. He pushed her down onto the bottom of the boat and prostrated his body above hers. He lowered his mouth onto hers and kissed her savagely.
She responded to this by writhing beneath him and making him all hot and horny. He was young. His hormones were coursing through him, and he thought of sex with Elise every two minutes. He had been faithful to her all the time he stayed at college. Call him old-fashioned, but he was monogamous to the bone. It had been difficult, of course, because girls threw themselves at him with the frequency of an alternating current.
He wondered if Elise had been faithful to him. She claimed she was, but he could never be too sure. She was too wild, too fey, too attractive for guys not to be climbing all over her.
Like the way he was doing now. Fueled by passion, they peeled off their clothes. Despite the cool breeze, the heat between them escalated, baking their bodies in a slow burn. They stripped until they were both naked, and they fell over each other again, devouring each other’s mouths in almost violent kisses.
He rained kisses all over her chin, her neck, her sternum, and then her bountiful breasts. She has nice-sized tits for such a slim girl. He cupped them so that her nipples were staring straight at him like two pink eyes, and they were so delicious-looking that he closed his mouth around her left one and suckled it intensely.
“Ohhhh,” she moaned as her fingernails raked his back.
He sucked at one, and then the other, until both were glistening in the pale light. Out here, they could be viewed by anyone who was walking on the banks, or anyone coming by in boat. But that was the thrill of public sex – the very anticipation of being caught.
“Did you bring a condom?” she said, her skin flushed.
He was tingling all over and his cock was so hard that it felt as if it would burst out of its skin. He took her hand and guided it to his shaft.
“Feel me.”
She clasped it tightly. He could
feel goose bumps all over his flesh, and he had to rein himself fin from spurting right then and there. “Hmmmm. Nice.”
“Think we can do it without a condom?” he asked for posterity.
“Not on your life. I’m not on the pill, and I don’t know who you’ve been with.”
“I haven’t been with anyone else.”
She laughed softly. “You expect me to believe that? When we were in school, every cheerleader was creaming her panties over you. Why should they be any different in Princeton?”
He clasped her face in one hand. It was a loving gesture, full of meaning. “I don’t want any other girl, Elise. I only want you.”
“You’re just saying that to get into my pants.”
“I’m already in your pants.”
Smiling, he reached out for his discarded jeans anyway and expertly flicked out a condom from his back pocket.
“You’ve come prepared,” she said.
“Always.”
They had already made love once that morning in her bedroom when her parents were asleep, and he had the energy to do it three times a day, if necessary, if she didn’t claim soreness.
“Put it on me,” he teased.
“You just want me to massage your cock.”
“Suck me.”
“No. I’ve already done it once this morning.”
Also smiling, she took the condom from him anyway, and ripped the wrapper with her teeth. Then she sheathed him, rolling it painstakingly down his shaft. He was so hard that it was easy.
He mounted her again, and parted her thighs. He loved gazing at her openness – her sweet, wet pussy as it was offered up to him like a flesh-colored flower. His penile head nudged her opening. His fingers wormed between the tender leaves of her pussy, teasing and tweezing her clit, and she moaned again and arched her spine.
He could feel more wetness spilling forth from her, bathing the sheathed tip of his cock.
He pushed his cock into her wondrous canal, feeling her firm walls fold in around his flesh. He closed his eyes and savored the blissful pressure.
“God,” he whispered, “this is the best feeling on earth.”
She was breathing too hard to reply to him. But he could sense her vaginal muscles clenching around him and squeezing him hard. He gasped.
He began to move – stabbing, rapid thrusts that were more enthusiastic than technically skillful . . . in those days. But she didn’t seem to mind. Her writhing body beneath him seemed to suggest massive enjoyment, and her half-parted lips issued sounds that would not be out of place in a streaming porn video. So he was reassured that he had the makings of a future great lover, even if he was not one now.
His fucking escalated in rhythm and intensity. The boat was rocking, and he could hear the sounds of tiny waves splash-splash-splashing against the timbers. They were still drifting. The air was torpid and steamy, and he was certain they were being bitten by mosquitoes. His skin exuded a layer of sweat, as did hers. Periodically, his mouth dipped down to kiss her as he fucked her.
“I love you,” he whispered against her lips.
“I love you too.”
He didn’t know if her answer was perfunctory. Did she love him as much as he loved her? Did she love him enough to wait for him?
He didn’t know then that he was about to have his answer the very next year.
He opened his eyes to look upon Elise’s rapturous face again. But it wasn’t Elise he was seeing. It was Abby, and her face is now thunderous and vengeful, like a woman who has been scorned at the altar.
“Justin, don’t stray from me or you’ll live to regret it,” she hisses.
*
Justin awakes from his reverie. He is alarmed. The four walls of the clinic still surround him. His wrist is aching from his frenetic masturbation, but his cock has gone semi-soft. The container remains empty. He has not shot his load.
At the door, someone is knocking.
“Mr. Morgan? It has been half an hour. We have a whole queue of people waiting for you to come out.” It’s the nurse. She sounds annoyed.
Justin glances at the clock. Oh shit. She’s right. Has he really spent half an hour in here trying to jerk off? He tries to rein in his panic.
He calls out, “I, uh, I’m not finished.”
Why does everything seem so loud? He’s certain the entire clinic is listening in.
“Mr. Morgan, your time has run out. You can make another appointment to come back tomorrow.”
Sheesh.
Great going, stud.
11
In the car, protected from the wintry weather, Justin keeps his eyes on the road.
“Don’t say anything,” he says.
“I’m not.”
Pause.
“It happens to everyone, Justin.”
“I thought you weren’t going to say anything.”
“I’m not.”
“You just did.”
“It’s just the clinic environment. All those eyes watching you.”
“They weren’t watching me. The door was closed.”
Elise doesn’t want to tell him that everyone was watching that door, wondering why the handsome, athletic-looking man in the well-cut, obviously expensive suit – who appears every inch the stud – doesn’t just shoot his jizz off and reappear as quickly as studly studs should.
She says, “Maybe we should try someplace outside of the clinic. Maybe we should go to a strip club.”
“What? Geez, Elise, what part of ‘don’t say anything’ didn’t you understand?”
“I was just trying to help. Meanwhile, my eggs aren’t getting younger.”
“It’s just one egg.”
“And it’s just one spermatozoon that I need from you.”
Justin groans as he flips on the windshield wiper to remove the snowflakes. “Tomorrow, OK? I’ll try again tomorrow.”
She stares at his profile. He has an incredible profile – a perfectly shaped nose and strong jaw. She remembers that very same profile silhouetted against the moonlight in her bedroom window on the last night they made love. The night she broke up with him.
“OK,” she says, reaching over and squeezing his forearm.
12
Justin returns to his flat, only to find the door unlocked. He curses, wondering if he has been careless. Then he remembers that Abby has a spare key.
He pushes open the door warily.
Abby is there all right, sprawled on his couch. Her hair is disheveled and her cheeks are red. An empty bottle of Jim Beam is set upon the table.
“Abby?” He sets down his briefcase. He has come from dropping Elise back at her inn, but he had gone to the clinic straight from office.
He goes to Abby, concerned. “What are you doing?”
She laughs mirthlessly.
“A whole lot less than what you’ve been doing. Obviously.” She indicates her cellphone on the table. “Have a look at what the private investigator brought me.”
“A private investigator? What the hell? You had me tailed?”
OK, he’s furious now, but something tells him to hold back – that Abby isn’t in the right frame of mind to deal with something as mundane as the intrusion of his privacy. If she ever really understood it in the first place.
“Have a look.” Her head lolls on her neck, and he has to resist the urge to go to her.
He picks up her cellphone instead.
“Press ‘play’, honey,” she drawls.
The video app is open on the display, and so he presses the ‘Play’ button. He is becoming increasingly disturbed.
Moving images of him entering the fertility clinic with Elise flicker into being. The angle looks as though it’s been taken from the other side of the street. Cut to a scene of him and Elise sitting awkwardly there on their chairs, waiting for his turn to be called.
Gawd. The videographer was just sitting across from him. He or she could have been any one of those couples which were staring at him and Elise in the waiting
room.
He turns to Abby, still moribund on his couch.
“You had me followed,” he accused.
She laughs again. “Of course I did. Who can trust you? You lied to me.”
He begins to say something, and then thinks the better of it. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“You said she was here on vacation. Liar. She’s here for a whole different reason and you know it.”
“I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you would go off the deep end like this.”
“Damned right I would. She’s going to have your child.” Abby’s voice rises to a shrieking pitch. “That’s huge, in case you haven’t noticed. So you’re going to have a child with this woman and you were not going to tell me about it?”
Justin knows that he’s trapped, and there’s no way out of this. Abby is right, of course. Him fathering a child with his former girlfriend is huge, and there’s no way any woman he’s currently in a relationship with would not be freaking out the way Abby is right now. It’s not exactly as if he has cheated on her, but he hasn’t come up smelling like roses either.
And he didn’t exactly lie. He just omitted to tell her the truth.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
She pushes herself up from the couch groggily. He doesn’t dare help her. He’s afraid she would lash out at him like a livewire.
“So when were you going to tell me?” she says, her body trembling. “During the birth when you have to fly out to wherever to watch your child being born? During his first birthday party?”
For some reason, he feels his anger simmering beneath the surface.
“You had no right to have me followed.”
“You had no right to lie to me.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“You tell me.” Her eyes flash. “I want you to stop seeing this woman. Forever. I want you to stop this charade, and if you haven’t impregnated her already, I want you to stop it right now.”
He is dead calm.
“What if I don’t want to?”
Tears blur her eyes. Her face is contorted and splotchy with desperation. He feels sorry for her, but he still wills her to say it:
A Xmas Gift: The Sperm Donor Page 5